


Double Tap

by RyMagnatar



Series: Highschool Greaser Punks [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: And then I killed everyone, Blood, Death, F/M, M/M, Shooting, also he watches some tv, and dirk screams, etc - Freeform, or rather eridan does
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-17
Updated: 2012-11-17
Packaged: 2017-11-18 20:58:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/565227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RyMagnatar/pseuds/RyMagnatar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(The tragic! ending to Monstrosity)</p><p>Eridan snaps.</p><p>His father's gun fits so nicely in his palm. </p><p>And he just wants to stop people from hurting him anymore. </p><p>He just wants to stop...</p><p>Everyone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Double Tap

Carrying a paper bag of groceries in both arms, you come home to a house you thought was empty but ultimately isn’t. Your youngest son is sitting curled up on the couch, watching one of his little wartime shows. His blanket is curled up tight around his shoulders and there’s an empty carton of ice cream beside him on the couch. “What are you watching, honey?”

“Tet Offensive.” He doesn’t look up.

The sound of gunfire on the television makes you jump. You pick up the carton and nervously brush your hair out of your face. You didn’t know how he could stomach this sort of show, but he was staring at it now without even blinking. “Eridan, this is all of the Neapolitan ice cream! I know it’s your favorite but this was for everyone? What am I going to tell your brother?”

“Tell Cro he can go eat a bullet.”

“Eridan!” You put your hand on your hip, “Don’t you say something  like that about your brother! I think you’ve seen enough of this show.” You walk over and turn off the show.

“I’ve had a really shitty week mom. Can’t you leave me alone?”

“I think you being alone is the last thing you need right now, mister. Come help me make dinner for you and your father. Did Cronus come back from the party with you?”

“No.” His tone is flat. He stares at the blank TV. You sigh and walk over. You grab his wrist and pull gently.

“C’mon son, let’s go!”

He resists a little longer and then finally stands, the blanket around his shoulders like his old cape you made for him as a kid. You begin to smile, to bring him into the kitchen, but stop suddenly. Eridan looks up at you, just stares at you as you stare down at him. You open your mouth and close it again.

“That’s a skirt.”

He doesn’t even blink. Your little boy doesn’t even look embarrassed at all for standing in front of you in a little pleated skirt.

“That’s a schoolgirl’s skirt.”

“Obviously. What did you think I was going to wear, pants?” He pulls his arm away from your hand.

“Eridan, what is this? Is something going on? Was it a costume party or something?” You do not like the implications of this skirt. You don’t really like the way he doesn’t seem to even care. You don’t like how this puts a different light on that Strider boy staying for dinner the other night. “Honey? Is this about that Strider boy?”

“No mom, I’m changing my identity. I figured since I’m a bitch that I might as well dress that way.”

“Oh sweetie, you’re not a bitch. Who’s saying these things about you?” You cup his cheek with your hand, “You can tell me and we can go talk to their parents to stop them.”

“Going to be kind of hard for you to talk to yourself isn’t it.” He’s frowning more now and pulling away again too. “Or I guess you could talk to Dad considering he’s pretty much the one who taught Cronus how to fuck my life up. And you just let him do it.”

“This is about your brother?”

“Who the fuck else would it be about? Who the fuck else makes my life miserable!” He pulls the blanket tight around himself. “And you just let him treat me like that. Everyone just treats me like shit, or lets others do it! No. I don’t want to help you make dinner for you or for dad or for anyone. I don’t want dinner. I don’t want food.” There are tears, tears on your baby’s face.

“Eridan-,”

“I just want to be left the fuck alone!” He turns and runs from the room.  You hear him stomping up the stairs to his room seconds later.

With a heavy sigh you go into the kitchen to throw away the empty carton and start putting away the groceries.

You put on your audio tape, smiling as you listen to Sherlock solve another mystery as you start peeling potatoes. You’re half way through chapter fifteen when you hear a noise behind you. Putting down the peeler, you wipe your hands on your apron and turn around.

Eridan’s standing in the doorway. He’s wearing the cape you made for him last Halloween, the one for his Hogwart’s costume. One of his hand tightly holds onto the edge of the cloth and the other is hidden. “Mother, I’ve thought of something.”

“What is that?”

“Everyone thinks I’m the bad guy, calls me stupid, a bitch. They make rumors about me and treat me like I don’t have any feelings.” He walks in slowly. You get this chill running down your spine, “So I decided that I am the bad guy. I decided not to have any feelings.”

“Eridan? What do you mean?”

The cape parts and that hidden hand comes up. You choke on your breath, looking at the gleaming barrel of your husband’s gun. “H-honey-,” You put up a hand, “Put that down. It’s dangerous. You could… you could shoot mommy.”

“That’s the point.”

The crack of the gun is drowned out by the sudden rush of blood in your ears and the way the counter makes your head ring as you fall back against it. Your chest aches, tight and painful like no feeling you’ve ever felt before. You try to speak, to breathe, and feel something wet dribble out of your mouth.

You look up and you can’t even see Eridan’s face properly.

The gun is right above your head. You close your eyes. Eridan had had such soft curly hair when he was an infant. All you had ever wanted was to protect him from the world and when you had him wrapped up in a soft blanket, nuzzling against your chest, you thought that you could actually protect this perfect baby.

There’s another gunshot and the world goes black.

* * *

With an aching back and a gnawing hunger in your belly, you already have a bad mood. You slam the door of your car shut and grumble all the way to the kitchen door. Aranea had better have made something palatable tonight. You really needed all the relaxing you could get. You hated having to go to work on a Saturday and having no luck.

Man, it just had not been your week!

You open the door, “I’m home!” There’s a weird smell, like metal and something sickly sweet. Eridan is sitting at the table wearing his stupid black cloak. When he sees you, he stand up.

“Where’s your mother, and where is dinner?” The kitchen is a mess. A stack of dishes out to set the table with, vegetables left out and what looks like a packet of raw chicken just sitting on the table. Eridan doesn’t answer you, just glances to the floor and then back up at you.

You move forward, to step around the bar that obscures your view of the floor, “Answer me boy. Where is your mo—holy fuck.”

Aranea is splayed out on the floor, blood pooled under her. There’s something on the counter behind her open skull. Your stomach flips and you take a half step back. You put your hand over mouth and jerk up to look at Eridan.

He has your gun in his hand, pointing at you. “Don’t do it, kid,” you say, “Don’t you fucking dare do it.” You drop your briefcase and inch towards him. “Think about it, you’re shooting your dad. You’ve shot your mother. Don’t make this any worse than it is.”

“I don’t see my father,” he says, lifting the gun a little more. You regret taking him to the range. You regret teaching him how to handle a gun. You regret showing him where yours was, just in case someone broke in and he needed to protect your wife. You regret that he was such a damn good shot and so you kept letting him shoot. You regret that one weekend you found him out shooting squirrels and you just let it slide.

“Eridan, son,” you hardly recognize this kid with dark eyes and a twisted scowl.

“I see a man who could have done a hell of a lot more but never gave enough of a fuck to. I see a man with a red flower on his chest.”

“A red-,” you glance down to your chest. In that second the shot rings out. In the middle of your chest red blossoms out of a hole like a blossoming rose. You lift a hand to your chest and stagger back. You lift your head to look at him but it feels like it’s made of solid lead. “Eri-.”

There’s another shot and the whole world goes black.

* * *

It’s chilly in the greyish predawn light as you roll your bike Babydoll up the driveway and officially turn her off. Your legs are shaky and you’re still a little light headed but it was so damn worth it. After the party you went out with Dirk. Three AM waffles were about four hundred and thirteen percent better when you’re eating them with your drunk boyfriend than with your drunk best friend. Especially when they were followed by a drunken public bathroom fuck.

But you were exhausted and needed to shower and put on something other than these fucking leggings and panties, the former ripped and latter stained. You open the front door quietly and slip into the house. The front room is dark except for the TV.

It’s one of Eridan’s stupid war shows, one of the dozen he’s got on DVD and watches over and over. You look on the couch, but no one is there.

You close the door and move in a little less cautiously. If your parents were letting him stay up late to watch TV, they weren’t going to have any issue with you sneaking in this late. Or early. Whatever.

You head to the kitchen, but before you get there, Eridan appears in the doorway. You laugh, “oh my fucking God, you’re wearing that?”

He’s in the skirt still but now its coupled with that stupid cape Mom made him. “So this is what you do when you stay up late at night to watch your shows. Do you get off on seeing people blow up?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe.”

That actually makes you pause. You’ve never had him reply like that before. “Uh. So, what are Mom and Dad up to?”

“They’re in the kitchen. We were waiting for you to return home.” Eridan says, smiling. You never understood that thing about smiles not touching the eyes before, but when he looks at you like that, his eyes flat and his smile more about showing his teeth than any pleasure, you think you might get it.

“Why?”

“I told them everythin’. Everythin’ Dirk did and you did. Everythin’ that I’ve kept in my journals. Even Vris’s shit and Fef’s shit is in there. They know it all, Cro. They want to have a little talk with you about it.” He steps to the side and gestures for you to go into the kitchen.

Your hands get sweaty so you rub them on your jeans and try not to look at him, look into those unblinking eyes as you walk towards him. You don’t think this is going to end well. Your fucking father was going to—

The stench is awful.

What’s worse is the image.

Your mother-

Your father-

At the table like-

Like they didn’t have fucking holes in the back of their skulls.

You twist around to look at Eridan and you’re staring at a gun. He’s out of arms reach, though. He’s got that smile still on his face. “So I figured I had two options,” he said, “Let you fuck with me for the rest of my life, or keep you from ever fuckin’ with me again.”

“But Mom and Dad-,”

“They never stopped you.” Eridan’s thumb pulls back the hammer on the gun. “They only stopped you from physically beatin’ me, but I think I coulda lived with that. I coulda lived with a broken bone if you hadn’t decided to use your fuckhead of whore best friend to break my heart.”

“Dirk isn’t-,”

“SHUT UP!” His hand doesn’t shake. How can he not be shaking with such a shout? “All I had left that was mine was taken from me this week. My love. My virginity. My hope. It was all I had left Cro, and you couldn’t be satisfied with me bein’ miserable. You just had to utterly destroy me.”

“Eridan, I-,”

The gunshot echoes in your ears long after it goes off. You start gasping for breath and take a half step back. You put a hand to your chest. It comes back bloody. You look up.

Eridan moves his arm just a little and fires again. Your other shoulder blossoms with pain. The edges of your vision go black. You open your mouth. “You fucker. How could you-.”

“You should have thought of this bein’ a result when you decided to tear apart everythin’ I had left, Cronus.”  The barrel is in front of your eyes but drops away.

The next shot brings you nothing but sheer agony spreading from your crotch outwards. You scream with what little breath you can muster. The fourth shot drowns you in darkness.

* * *

You insist that Dirk takes you to the Ampora’s. Or rather, you steal his keys and wont give them back to him until he agrees. He finally does when you tell him that he broke that kid, literally fractured something inside of him, with the shit he pulled on Saturday.

He doesn’t look like he wants to believe you. He wont meet your gaze so you know you’re right. You just heard about it from Roxy and from Nepeta, how Eridan had staggered out, had thrown up, had sobbed and shouted and eventually ran out and down the street. They hoped he had gotten home, but no one had seen him since.

So you end up on the back of your brother’s bike as he rides over.

The place looks weirdly dark. The cars are both out on the driveway, but there’s no sign of the usual Sunday activities. Up and down the street kids play outside and men mow their lawns but the Ampora house is dark. Dark and still.

Dirk walks straight up to the front door and knocks. You look around a little more, peer into the window beside the front door and frown. You can see the TV on in the room, but the lights are out. Dirk impatiently knocks again and then rings the doorbell.

There comes a crash from inside and then you can see someone moving in the TV’s light.

In a minute or two, Eridan opens the door. He looks like he slept on the couch, with the way his hair sticks off oddly on one side and with that black blanket around his shoulders. You notice the collar and amend that observation, he’s wearing a cape or something. Which would be cool if it didn’t look like he’d spilled something on it and didn’t clean it up. He only opens the door enough to see his head and shoulder.

“The fuck do you two want?”

Dirk pushes on the door, “Let me in to see Cronus.”

Eridan sneers. It’s not as well done as Bro’s but it’s impressive. “Get the fuck of my front step.”

Dirk pushes harder, the door jerks back half an inch and then it’s clear that Eridan’s leaning against it to keep him from getting inside. “C’mon kid. I don’t want to bug you any more than I have to but let me fucking see Cronus all right? He hasn’t been answering my texts all day.”

Eridan smiles. Or it could be a smile. _Technically_ it was a smile. The corners of his mouth went up and he showed his teeth but it just reminded you of a barracuda. “What a fuckin’ shame. You must’a pissed him off somehow.”

For some reason that makes Dirk pull back. Eridan sees his advantage and pushes against the door. It slams shut in Dirk’s face.

He stands there silently for a moment and then shakes his head. “I didn’t. I know I didn’t.” He rubs his forehead. “When Cronus has a problem he works in the garage. You didn’t see him in there, did you?”

“No.” You didn’t see much of anything. The garage was just as dark as the rest of the house. “Let me try talking to him?”

Switching places with your brother, this time you ring the doorbell again and again until he answers. He pulls it open a little farther, showing a flutter of the skirt you’d heard about from Saturday. “What!?”

You lean against the doorjam, hands in your pockets, and blocking the view of Dirk, as you ask, “Hey Eridan, can you let us in for a bit? Dirk’s going to just bitch and whine like a little girl until he gets to see Cronus again.”

Eridan frowns.

You try to give him an appeasing smile. “C’mon. I know what they did to you was a fucking awful thing to do and I know it hurts, but you’ll get past it.” You lean in a little, “You’ll be fine because no matter what they did to you, they haven’t taken everything away from you, man.”

He laughs. He laughs and you see tears roll down his cheeks. He laughs and pulls open the door. He staggers back. His arms are around his middle and you see the gleam of metal in his hand and the spatter of something red on his legs. He laughs and laughs and shouts, “You’re right! They won’t! They can’t! I took it all away myself!”

He uses the heel of his hand to wipe away the tears and that gleam of metal becomes a handgun. You swallow heavily and straighten up.

Then a breeze comes from inside the house and you have to cover your mouth because of the stench that comes out. “What the fuck,” you hear Dirk breathe from behind you. He’s surging past in the next moment, past you, past Eridan, knocking down the laughing and crying kid down to the ground and running into the house. You look down at Eridan, horrified. His cheek has a smear of red on it. His hands are red with dried blood.

You hear an inhuman scream from inside. It’s a sound that you know is going to wake you up in the middle of the night for years to come. Eridan’s lying on the floor, holding the gun and flat out weeping now.

“What the fuck…” you whisper, “What the fuck happened…”


End file.
